When you add an element to a list, the list remembers automatically what data type the value was.

Generally, because you're the one adding something to a list, you know what datatype is in what place in the list, and you retrieve it out of the list with the appropriate llList2<type> function such as: llList2String, llList2Vector, etc. (more on this later.)

If for some reason, though, you need to test what data type an element is in a list, you can use the llGetListEntryType function.

Tip! When adding a float to a list, always add it with a decimal point (e.g 1.0 as opposed to 1) to ensure that it is preserved as a float.

Counting place in a list vs list length

It's important at the outset to note the following (which can trip up even experienced minds when they are battle-weary):

["Yes","No","Perhaps"]

The length of this list is 3, because it has 3 elements in it. The length of a list is returned by the llGetListLength() function:

integer length = llGetListLength(mylist);

BUT, counting to determine an element's place in its list (aka "indexing") starts at 0 -- NOT 1.

The position of "Yes" in the above list is 0, "No" is at position 1, and "Perhaps" is at position 2.

Consequently, if you have 7 elements in a list, the last item in the list will be at position 6.

Thus to retrieve the last element in a list, without having to know in advance what position it is at, you can just go:

While a script is running, a list can grow dynamically as large as needed, limited only by the amount of memory that is available in the script.

However, at compile (aka save) time, there is a 72 element limit to pre-defined lists hardcoded in the script. Such long, predefined lists are common, for example, when someone is offering the user a plethora of colour choices.

Tip! If you really need 72 or more such choices in a pre-defined list, just make 2 (or more) lists that don't upset the compiler, and join them together in state_entry() or wherever appropriate:

The third way saves memory. SL Psyke Phaeton has reported that when adding around 90 elements to a list, 3-4KB of memory can be saved. Why it works continues to be the topic of some discussion. It was invented, possibly, by Strife Onizuka.

Note: The above example actually creates 3 lists in memory while the command runs, even though just one is returned. This can affect memory usage.

Clearing a List

To clear a list, set it equal to two square, empty brackets like this:

myList = [];

Strided lists

One common use of lists is to duplicate the functionality of structured collections of data (aka structs). Such collections, available in many programming languages, are absent from LSL.

In-world in SL, (still as of July 2008), a strided list is the closest you can get to storing limited amounts of data in some kind of structure that you can access and manipulate in a few, limited ways.

Strided lists allow you to store related data pieces grouped (aka "strided") in sets. You can determine how many pieces of data in each "grouping."

An example is best at this point. You might use a strided list to track the names, gender and rez dates of a group of avatars:

This example has a stride of three, because each grouping (or stride) has three data elements. Index 0 ("John Adams") is the start of the first instance (because list counting starts a 0), index 3 ("Shirley Bassey") is the start of the second instance, and so on.

It is important that the pieces of information in each grouping are always entered in the same sequence for every instance of the grouping in the list! In the example above, this means that the name needs to be always the first of the three related elements. You should consider carefully the order in which you record information because the function to sort a list, llListSort, will only sort on the first element of the instances. In other words, if the avatar's rez date were the most important attribute for your script, then you would need to record it first, and the name second. If you wish to be able to sort by avatar last name rather than first name, the name should be added to the list in Lastname FirstName format (avoiding a comma, though, of course, unless you wanted LastName and FirstName treated as separate elements in the list.)

To add another person to the above list, you would do this:

demographics += ["Dorthy Lamour", "female", "2010-01-22"];

You cannot do any kind of fancy data analysis or manipulation with strided lists, as you can in off-world databases or spreadsheets, but they can meet some limited, in-world needs, if you don't have the resources to tie-in off-world tools.

Here are the tools we do have for strided lists:

The following three (as of July 2008) native LSL functions can be used with strided lists:

Returns a new list, composed of elements that were in either original script, but not both. Note: This is not the same as getting rid duplicates by preserving just one of each duplicated item. It goes further, and removes both items.